Conventional furniture storage components such as file cabinets, shelving units, bookcases and the like typically have corners defined either directly by the cabinet walls or by separate corner pieces which are permanently and fixedly secured to the walls by appropriate fastening arrangements. These structures, however, do not provide for multiple use orientations of the corner trim detail, and in particular do not permit attachment to an adjacent furniture component such as an adjacent cabinet or panel. When cabinets of this type are utilized in offices which employ "Systems" furniture, namely large open office areas which are divided into smaller work areas by series of joined space dividing panels, the cabinets typically are utilized in the work areas as wholly freestanding units which are positioned adjacent but in front of one of the panels, and as such the cabinet can not be integrated into the panel system. This results in the panel system and cabinet utilizing a greater floor area, and additionally requires use of a sufficient number of panels to effectively divide or separate the adjacent work areas since the cabinets merely sit in front of the panels and are not effective for performing a dividing or separating function.
Accordingly, the present invention relates to an improved furniture component, such as a storage cabinet, which is particularly desirable for use in association with Systems-type furniture so as to provide highly-increased flexibility with respect to the creation and rearrangement of the Systems furniture, and particularly for permitting minimization in the use of floor space and minimization in the required number of panels by permitting the cabinet structure itself to be securely incorporated directly into a run of panels so as to also perform a separating or dividing function between adjacent work areas.
With the improved cabinet arrangement of the present invention, the cabinet employs a removable corner structure which has multiple selectable orientations so as to provide for multiple use functions, thereby providing significantly increased versatility and flexibility with respect to use of the cabinet and its cooperation with the overall associated Systems furniture.
In a preferred embodiment, the furniture cabinet is provided with an improved corner structure associated with one, and preferably all of the corners thereof. This cabinet structure includes an elongated outwardly opening recess associated with and extending longitudinally along each vertical corner of the cabinet, which recess removably receives therein a vertically extending corner element. The corner element can be positioned in the recess in any one of several selected orientations so that different side faces of the corner element are exposed. This corner element in the preferred embodiment is longitudinally slidably inserted into and retained in the recess. The corner element has one exposeable side face which is configured to provide an exposed corner surface, particularly a rounded surface, when the corner is intended to be positioned in spaced association from other components. By orienting the corner member in another selectable position, then other side faces of the corner member are exposed, and one of these is provided with an elongate groove for accommodating one half of a securing element, such as a hinge element, which securing element in turn can have the other half thereof secured to another furniture component such as a space dividing panel.
Other objects and purposes of the present invention will be apparent to persons familiar with structures of this general type upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.